A Man Chooses
by Lord Rebecca-sama
Summary: His life. His entire life. It was just one big lie. One big pile of trash that Atlas fed to him around every corner. Would you kindly, indeed. Oneshot.


**I don't own Bioshock. This is story number 50 for me! YAY!**

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_A Man Chooses  
a Bioshock fanfiction_

A 'Who is Atlas?' poster curled at the edges on the cold, steel, grey wall in the underwater city of Rapture. Water dripped from the ceiling in a steady rhythm. Pink coral glowed on the dim ocean floor. The shell of a man in a large diving suit carried a rivet gun and fixed a leak between the glass window and the reinforced steel frame. A low moan echoed in the not quite empty room.

Jack crept forward, wrench held out and Electro Bolt plasmid glowing in the dim light. He walked out of the Bathysphere and into Hephaestus, dark pants swishing at his ankles and white shirt stained red with blood.

The radio hooked to his belt beeped to life. "Would you kindly go to Ryan's office and kill the son of a bitch? It's time to end this," Atlas said.

Andrew Ryan. The owner of this vast underwater utopia called Rapture. Although, it wasn't much of a utopia anymore. Brother fought against brother for just one more hit of EVE, to feel that power coursing through their veins once again.

It was slow going for Jack. Ryan didn't hold back any of his forced to keep him away. He even went as far as to cause a self destruct of the city.

The metal doors swooshed open and Jack walked into a room where the entire back wall was covered in papers. In the middle were six pictures with red string connecting them. Jack's picture was connected by one string to Andrew Ryan himself and Jasmine Jolene. Another string connected him to doctors Brigid Tenenbaum and Yi Suchong. Sprawled over the entire wall in red paint was the phrase 'Would You Kindly'. That…phrase…

Underneath, on the ledge, rested two audio diaries. He picked the first one up. It talked about an experiment that Suchong was working on. The second one had another voice, a young voice. "Break that puppy's neck – would you kindly..," Suchong said to the younger voice.

The boy sobbed. "No…no." But the dog started yipping louder, then silence.

"Very good," Suchong replied and the diary went dead.

Jack didn't know what to think. When Suchong spoke that phrase over the radio, he felt like he needed to go snap a puppy's neck. However with no puppy in site, the feeling disappeared and Jack took a steadying breath before going into Ryan's office.

"The assassin has overcome my final defense, and now he's come to murder me," Andrew Ryan said. Jack walked further into the office and saw Andrew Ryan putting golf balls into a cup on a small grass strip. "In the end, what separates a man from a slave?" He stopped putting and walked to the end of his green. "Money? Power? No, a man chooses," He lined up the golf shot, "a slave obeys. You think you have memories:" Ryan leaned against his golf club, "a farm," A farm house flashed in Jack's mind, "a family," He saw himself with his parents, "an airplane," Jack was smoking a cigarette on the airplane, "a crash," He floated in the water watching the plane go up in smoke, "and then this place." Ryan hit another golf ball.

"Was there really a family?" Jack sat, as a child, on an operating table with Tenenbaum and Suchong standing next to him in lab coats. "Did that airplane crash," Ryan pulled a golf ball from his pocket and examined it, "or was it hijacked?" A gun sat in a box on Jack's lap on the airplane with a note that said _To Jack, With love from Mom & Dad Would you kindly not open until: 63º 2' N 29º55' W xxx ooo_, "Forced down, forced down by something less than a man." He walked in front of the window and spoke to the assassin, "Something breed to sleepwalk through life until they're activated by a simple phrase spoken by their kindly master. Was a man sent to kill, or a slave? A man chooses, a slave obeys." Ryan walked to the door.

"Come in," he said, opening the door. Jack started to walk in. "Stop, would you kindly?" Jack froze. "'Would you kindly'… Powerful phrase. Familiar phrase?" All of the times that Atlas commanded Jack with the phrase flashed though his mind as Jack stood in front of Andrew Ryan. No choice. "Sit, would you kindly?" Jack sat down on the ground. He never had a choice. "Stand, would you kindly?" Jack stood. His entire life… "Run! Stop! Turn." Jack turned to face Ryan, his breathing heavy from the short run. He was powerless to Ryan's commands. "A man chooses, a slave obeys." Ryan turned his golf club and handed it to Jack handle first. What did he—no, he couldn't. "Kill!" He could. Jack frowned and did as the man commanded and bashed the club against the other man's skull. "A man chooses!" Ryan ground out through the obvious pain he was in. Jack watched on in fright as his arm swung out again to hit the man. "A slave obeys!" Jack swung again. He didn't want to do this. "Obey!" Ryan shouted his last demand and Jack swung the club into his head, lodging it into his skull. The man fell down dead onto the blood stained floor.

Jack tried to back away from the body, but it disobeyed him when Atlas commanded him to get the genetic key and put it in the self destruct override machine. The gate closed and he was stuck.

His life was just one big lie. He never had a choice in his actions. Nothing he did was by his own vocation.

Atlas—no, Frank Fontaine was the reason his so-called life was a living hell. Atlas was just another lie piled onto the top of the pile of shit he fed Jack.

"This way mister!" a Little Sister called to Jack when the flying sentries started to attack him. Jack realized that he had one choice. One decision in a life full of fucking lies. The Little Sisters. Small little girls stuck in a life just like he is. He would save all the remaining little girls, and he would find Tenenbaum. Maybe this small one would lead him to her. She was the scientist that made them how they were; Tenenbaum was connected to him by a string on the board in the other room; so, she had to know of a way to free him of the mind control.

If not, well, finding Fontaine and taking him out with a bang will have to do as a fine substitute.

_The End._

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**Thanks for reading~! I had fun writing this for an English assignment. It was about a character flaw and what the character does about it. Obviously, Jack's flaw is mind control lol. Hope I get a good grade.  
**

**~Lord Rebecca-sama  
**


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